The first series of documents of the fonds of the fifth term of the European Parliament (EP), transferred to the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) from the Historical Archives of the European Parliament, are now available for consultation at the HAEU in Florence. The fonds (PE5) brings together the organised files related to the Parliament’s legislative activity from 1999 to 2004.
The fifth legislature of the EP was elected through direct universal suffrage. The elections took place from 10 - 13 June 1999, with European citizens in the then-fifteen member states electing 626 MEPs to five-year terms. The fifth legislature coincided with the 2003 Treaty of Nice, which increased its legislative and supervisory powers.
Many of the documents in PE5 are related to work done by standing and temporary parliamentary committees, and consist of parliamentary reports and minutes of meetings. Temporary committees of note include the committee set up in 2000 on ECHELON, the global communications surveillance system; the committee set up in 2001 on human genetics and other new technologies in modern medicine; and a temporary committee on improving safety at sea, set up in 2003 following several highly polluting incidents in European waters.
In addition to documents on EP committee activities, the inventory also includes correspondence, notes and minutes from meetings of joint parliamentary association committees, delegations to multilateral parliamentary assemblies and other inter-parliamentary delegations involving numerous countries external to the European Union.
Future transfers from the EP to the HAEU will include the minutes of the plenary sessions and the documents from the Parliament's management bodies, in particular the Bureau, the quaestors and various working groups.
Certain files of parliamentary committees and delegations may still be closed to the public in accordance to the access rules to EU institutional archives in force.
Consult the PE5 fonds here.